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Open Sourcers Say Grid Is Good (Wired)

[Posted August 15, 2002 by cook]

Wired covers reactions to various keynotes at LinuxWorld. "You have to wonder how all this backstabbing business stuff is going to affect the camaraderie of Linux development," Frank Pfeil, a systems administrator from New York, said. "Linux coders aren't all sweetness and light, but we never stood around and mocked each others' work for three days straight at a public event like these big companies have done.""

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Posted Aug 16, 2002 3:10 UTC (Fri) by Sage1 (guest, #3287) [Link]

Uh, you and I, we like to hobnob, kick back, and when we work, it is with great fervor, non-stop, to accompliah our goal. We are artists, in love with our creations, and competitive like a guild of sculptors. We cajole, do some sales, but, money is not important, not like a smooth cut in a sensual statue, embodying our sweat, our pain, our joy, and resulting in a statement of love and honor, that is fought over by the gathering hordes of neuveau collectors... to our utter amazement.

Suddenly, Those guys, the Big Corporate Types, with their formal face,stiff shirt, and tie, 'Those guys' know nothing about passion in the creation of a work like our art. Those guys are driven to fight it out, face to face, for a small commission, for a customer that might just slip away. Even arguing in the face of the potential customer, over what value our work holds, 'Those guys' are 'Marketing'. Their only serious thing is 'the sell', 'the closing', 'the signature' on the contract. Then, it is 'Next!'.

'Those Guys' are now taking over the outward and commercial face of Linux, taking it away from us friendly artists, for the 'Almighty Dollar'.

Tux was dancing happily, for us, up to earlier this year, until 'Those Guys' decided he is really big, in a commercial way. The stage has turned into an auction platform, and we are sad to see the change that has come upon our works. We sense a sale of our inheritance, for a paltry crust of bread and bowl of soup. We might survive on our new income, if we can justify the sacrifice. This change was actually occuring over several years
before and through, the New Millenium. We only just noticed that our art is part of the change of the New Millenium, and it is in metamorphosis, destined to grow better, even as we watch, and work.

We need emotional bonding, this guild of sculpturers, to overcome the feelings of loss and change. Perhaps we can find a different hall in which to celebrate our special joy? Could Geekfest 2003 be in the offing?

Open Sourcers Say Grid Is Good (Wired)

Posted Aug 16, 2002 12:49 UTC (Fri) by haraldt (guest, #961) [Link]

Now, now.
Isn't it the cost of pushing Linux to the unenlighted masses?
As long as the code is free, there will always be a core of artistry.

Open Sourcers Say Grid Is Good (Wired)

Posted Aug 16, 2002 12:52 UTC (Fri) by erat (guest, #21) [Link]

Although I can appreciate the sentiment of what you wrote, I fail to see how corporate types are destroying anything. They have their slice of the Linux pie just like you do. They create commercialized versions of Linux, and folks like those working on Debian continue producing for-the-love versions, commercialization be damned. New distros that have nothing to do with the almighty dollar pop up daily as do new open source and free software projects. Perhaps you're just looking at the small handful of commercial Linux companies and ignoring the hundreds of other groups working with Linux for the sake of art?

Linux is available for everyone. It always has been. Ditto for the GPL which can be commercial-friendly depending on how you use it. If you open access to your creations using something like the GPL you're opening the access to everyone, including some folks you may not like all that much. That's not their fault: it's your fault for choosing a license that allows this to happen.

There are ways to restrict your art so commercial entities can't use it -- you're free to use whatever license you want for things you created -- so you can't really blame the big guys for leveraging your code if you allow that in your license.